Arizona weekly enterprise., 1887-08-13
A POETS BITTER EXPERIENCE.

A POETS BITTER EXPERIENCE. The Story Told of a Rhymester Who Is
 Known Only as Horse" Editor.
 How many men would soberly write themselves down as poets by profession in the yearly census? I know one poet, really a poet, who has published four volumes of poetry-I use the much abused word advisedly and in its highest sense-and I suppose that not one-third of his friends and acquaintances have any notion that his literary work takes any other direction than that of journalism; he certainly would give journalism as his profession, and I doubt if there be any department of poets in the commercial directory of this city. Another poet l have known is stockbroker in Wall street; third edits most unpoetic and commercial publications; fourth writes reports on horse races for daily paper, and is well known. for his graphic de- scriptions and knowing prophecies con corning horse flesh. 3
 This last poet is a stirring, lively fel- low, with family to support, and he signs his little surrepttious volume of verses with an assumed nanne; he would not have it known at ssthe office'' that the pretty book, with its exquisite dedi- cation to the writer's wife, and its ten der love poems to her, was written by him, for four times the money that its publication cost him. The wife knows it, half dozen intimate friends and the publisher know, but nobody else knows nor cares who or what the author is. Two hundred copies of the book were sent to newspaper offices in differe1t n.parts of the country, fifty to such men lIks-1-----<.a..si ssdzzssaiTs<5 the n<At through their lives or writings, twentks five were sold, and 225, the balance of the edition, stand on a shelf in the dark cellar under the booksellers office. "PGetry is drug in the market is the common phrase of the publishers to-day, and yet it is hard to believe that there is no use for the poet in the present and the future. What did my friend, the horse racing poet, get back from his little volume, that cost him so many sleepless nights, such exquisite anxiety such grievous birth bangs, such painful loving labor, so many hard earned dol lars? A large bill from his publisher 100 newspaper criticisms, some of whicl mocked, some of which patronized, some quoted, some philosophical on, few ol which praised bis venture into verse.
 It was my fortune to sit with him ant his wife in their wee cheery parlors anG read the criticisms, which at the end O every week he brought home, clipped from newspapers, magazines, reviews anC theatre programmes from every section of the country. Very few of the written had read the book, and fewer had though about it. 1 was surprised to find how | quietly he took some of these notices which showed so plainly that the writer had barely skinned the volume and ha( used it merely as peg to hang para graph upon. The little fierce wife, wh had gone without a new frock or bonne the whole year through, who had pinche, and economized her luxuriously nature self in thousand different ways in orde | that the book-her hook-written flo love of her, might be fittingly printed would cry with angry disappointment and sympathy for her husband, but took it all patiently, heroically. He req the pert wit at his expense, the heartles ridicule, the lukewarm, perfunctor praise from a critic who was under obi gations to the house which brought ou the book, the misquotations, the articl written by man who had read the firs and last verses of a happy idyl and mis took 1t for tragedy and proceeded reduce the poet to fragments, to bra him in mortar for serving the hagi muse in these days when the pubi wants cheerfulness and comedy. All thes he read with calm gravity.
 He pasted all the extracts carefully int 9 book; they took up many pages, and o one, the last in the book, he put the hal dozen real criticisms out of the whole lo Two of these praised him and encourage him; two criticised him from high an intelligent standpoint; one told him tn; he had lived too late; and the sixth di passionately pointed out to him what
 waste of time the writing of the book ha been. Around this page the poet drew
 line with his red chalk pencil, and the put the book away, and began writin out the notes he had made on the race the Country club that afternoon.
 This experience of my friends has le me to much speculation as to the poet the future. What manner of man, wh; style of writer will he be?-Boston Tral script.